Bolivian Police Seize Ton Of Drugs

December 14, 1986|United Press International

LIMA, Peru -- A Bolivian narcotics strike force bombed a hidden jungle runway used by cocaine traffickers and captured nearly a ton of semi-processed narcotics, according to a report published Saturday.

Drug police flying in an air force helicopter dropped explosives on the airstrip during raids on a jungle valley considered the most productive site in the world for growing coca, the government-owned La Cronica newspaper reported.

The leaves of the bitter coca plant are used in making cocaine.

A U.S.-financed narcotics strike force and members of the Peruvian air force took part in the raids, which began at the beginning of December and ended Friday, the newspaper said.

The strike force destroyed 44 open-air pits for processing coca leaves into a smelly paste and seized nearly a ton of the paste itself, the newspaper said. No arrests were made.

Neither officials in the Interior Ministry nor in the Lima office of the narcotics police could confirm the report immediately, but the government often publishes announcements in La Cronica.

About 100 police and soldiers took part in the raids in the Upper Huallaga Valley, a dense jungle area 250 miles north of the capital of Lima that is the heart of Peru`s illicit cocaine industry.

The only other time authorities are known to have bombed an airstrip was in early August, when President Alan Garcia sent air force jetfighters to drop explosives on hidden runways near Peru`s border with Colombia. Authorities later acknowledged that the bombings were a show of force against narcotics traffickers.

Narcotics police have carried out four major narcotics raids -- all dubbed ``Condor`` after the huge Andean vulture -- since Garcia came to office in July 1985 and declared ``all-out war`` on cocaine trafficking.